We wanted to give you a call real quick and give you our one week update on our expedition 2011 on the Kahiltna Glacier. First of all when we first got here we dug in our camp at the Kahiltna landing strip and immediately set out on a six day trip to the rarely or never visited West Fork of the Lacuna Glacier. This entailed over twenty miles of glacier travel and it took us four days to recon the route out from the base of the peak which we intended to climb.

Graham Zimmerman transitions to booting while navigating one of the many ice falls of the Lacuna Glacier system. One of several reasons it would take 4 of our 7 days of supplies to recon a route through the gauntlet to our desired Advanced Base Camp. ~Mark Allen

We put ourselves below the unclimbed South face of a unnamed numbered peak on the Lacuna Glacier system and made it up 2,500 feet of a new route and were turned around due to bad snow conditions and an impending storm.

Graham Zimmerman Looks down 1000ft of newly discovered terrain on out bivi perch above the Northwest fork of the Lacuna Glacier. ~Mark Allen

So we ended up descending after one and a half days on route and ended up returning to our camp. We used the remaining time for the 20 mile of glacier travel back to base camp. It was pretty much an odyssey into a more remote area Alaska Range terrain into a zone that neither of us had ever seen with the naked eye and possibly hadn't been visited by another human being. It was a pretty wild adventure. Everything is going well, right now we're focusing on acclimatization. We're going to spend the next four days climbing the West ridge of Mt. Hunter, with the intent of climbing most of the route tomorrow, and bivying as high as we can to spend as much time as can above 10,000ft to start acclimatizing for bigger objects. Hope all is going well at home and wish you guys luck, and wish us luck on our next adventure up the West ridge of Hunter.......READ MORE @..http://lacunaexpedition.blogspot.com/

About Me

Mark is the Director of Expeditions Northwest LLC,
a booking network for climbing trips worldwide. Mark is a Washington native and cut his teeth in the North Cascades 1991 and began guiding in the Northwest in 2001. Now he is currently a Full IFMGA Mountain Guide; AMGA Rock, Ski, Alpine Certified and a AIARE Level II Avalanche instructor. When not personal climbing across the US Mark divides his time guiding extensive Alpine, Ice, Rock and Ski trips in the North Cascades, Colorado’s San Juans, and European Alps. Mark’s shoulder seasons are typically spent by annual spring migrations to Alaska to alpine and ski guide in the Alaska and Chugach ranges, rock guide in Red Rock NV and Joshua Tree CA, or high altitude mountaineering in Nepal. Mark’s personal interests are alpinism and ski mountaineering descents in areas that still need exploring. His academic background is in geology with an emphasis on mountain building processes. On his days off he explores the undiscovered corners of his back yard — the North Cascades and San Juan Mountains.